As I tuned in to Q&A
this week, I was viciously confronted by a Hanson-esque, short and tight, 80s perm. Pyne always reminds me of a John Waters' caricature. You know, when
Serial Mom is questioning the character of the high school girl because she has
bad hair. Serial Mom reminds us how important it is to question the credibility
of those individuals whose hairstyles embody a time and a place where gay men
often; hated themselves, married women and joined the Liberal Party. Secretly, I also imagine dressing as Serial Mom,
with Christopher Pyne as my Mr Stubbins.
As Pyne yapped, I
suffered another terrifying flashback. It was 2011 and John Howard was
launching Mining Company Director Ian Plimer’s new book, How to Get Expelled
from school: A guide to climate change for pupils, parents and punters,
at Sydney Fucking Mining Club. The book was typical climate change denialism
aimed at innocent school children and their concerned parents who, according to
Plimer, were his inspiration. It received much the same reception
as everything else Plimer has written, people with half a brain labelling it as
a pile of pseudoscientific dog shit. Left wingers declared that it might be
easier to get disciplined by your school by standing up at parade and declaring
that you are a poofter? In 2009, Tony Abbott spoke through his red
speedos of Plimer, “I think that in response to the IPCC alarmist - in inverted
commas - view, there've been quite a lot of other reputable scientific voices.
Now not everyone agrees with Ian Plimer's position, but he is a highly credible
scientist and he has written what seems like a very well-argued book refuting
most of the claims of the climate catastrophists."[1]
When he launched Plimer’s
book, Howard unashamedly expressed his fears about left wing radicals. Since
then, we have been bombarded by paranoid conservatives' perceiving threats that
progressive people pose to both the independence of private schools and the
school curriculum. This neo-conservative ‘thinking’ is perfectly embodied in
Kevin Donnelly, director of Education Standards Institute, a right wing think
tank. On the Institute's website, Donnelly [2]
declares, “at a time of international terrorism represented by radical Islam
and jihad there is no attempt to teach students about the liberal, democratic
institutions and values that ensure Australia's stability and peace.
Christianity barley rates a mention and ignored is that there are some cultural
practices that are un-Australian and abhorrent to our way of life and that
values like tolerance, civility and a commitment to freedom are a
characteristic of Western, liberal democracies”. The independent authority responsible
for the development of the national curriculum, the Australian Curriculum
Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) [3]
have dismissed such claims, directly responding to the paranoid delusions of
conservatives in their media releases.
Donnelly embodies the
kind of conservative thinking about multiculturalism, terrorism, Islam, Muslims,
socialism and the Greens, (just to name a few), that fascinates a pitchfork
bearing public. His critique of Greens’ policies extends to their embrace
of sexual and gender diversity. Donnelly believes that
non-government schools must be allowed to discriminate against those that
individuals who do not conform to narrow sexual and gender norms, in the hiring
of staff or selection of students. He also expresses his concern about
the Greens' call for age appropriate information about the diversity of sexuality
and gender be taught at schools. Donnelly argues that imposing this on
religious schools, “flies in the face of international human rights agreements
and conventions protecting religious freedom”[4].
What a coincidence that Tony Abbott launched his party’s education policy at a
Christian school in Western Sydney that (on its website) described
homosexuality as an abomination[6].
The explicit homophobia has since been retracted in ‘The Donna Summer Act’ of
2013.
Anyway, back to this week’s
Q&A. Pyne was carrying on like a privileged white, Western, kinda
heterosexualish male, spewing statements which reflected and reinforced fear of
socialism and environmentalism. In his discussion of the national
curriculum, he encouraged the viewer to think that the themes permeating it
were not what good parents want. Pyne was echoing Donnelly’s recent
claims that every subject has to be taught through environmental, Indigenous
and Asian perspectives [7].
The ACARA dispelled [8]
Donnelly’s assertion. “They are identified as issues that should be addressed
but only where relevant and as part of the teaching of the traditional
disciplines of knowledge,” the ACARA said. I haven't been to school
for 20 years, but I have my doubts that school kids are being encouraged to
deconstruct capitalist philosophy and engage in rigorous questioning of
economic rationalism and rampant individualism.
[4]
p.33 in The Greens: Policies, Reality and Consequences (2011) editor:
Andrew McIntyre. Connor Court.
Kev, Pyne, and their mob still at it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/10/the-men-behind-the-school-curriculum-review